Our younger daughter was in tears because no one in our…

younger daughter was in tears because no one in our family could understand what she was saying. We knew that she had lost something from her pocket—something that was precious to her. I prayed with a desire to help her, something our family needed to do often when communicating with this child. We longed to have her healed of a serious speech difficulty. In my prayers for her, I realized that everyone with challenging speech difficulties could experience freedom. It was comforting to have faith that one's inclusive prayers would bless our child and others.

Ever since she had begun to talk, most of the time we could only guess at what this daughter was saying. As a Christian Scientist, I knew that the beauty and perfection of God were expressed by our child in her true being, the spiritual image of God. This divine fact had to be proved through practice of the spiritual truths that the Bible and Christian Science teach.

As I prayed to help our daughter find what she had lost, I noticed a small book with a cover that portrayed a noted author and her daughter. The child in the portrait is embracing her mother. As I thought of our daughter's words that we could not fathom, the word hugging came to me. I then asked our daughter if she was telling us that she had lost a picture of a little girl hugging her mother. She happily nodded yes. Her tears changed to smiles when she finally received the longed-for answer and the picture.

At bedtime our two daughters prayed the following prayer for children in Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy:

Father-Mother God,
Loving me,—
Guard me when I sleep;

Guide my little feet
Up to Thee.

After our younger daughter listened to her sister say the prayer, she could only say in broken English, "I pray the same, God." We knew she longed to speak as well as her sister and the other little children.

I prayed for everyone, my family and the world. Such prayer for mankind has often been for me a gateway to healing, a prayer that one knows is answered because of a silent inner assurance as powerful and as convincing as spoken words.

LIFT OFF THOSE LABELS

about a new school year—rightfully brimming with happy expectation as school supplies are readied, lunch boxes packed, classrooms prepared, dorm rooms decorated. School is about expanding horizons, pulling back limitations, and lifting labels. The very word school hints at infinite spiritual frontiers to explore, and to support effectively in prayer.

Unfortunately, as the media all too often report, schools can be the arena for harmful pigeonholing and intimidation. And the recent suicide of a high school boy in Illinois, who felt like an outsider bullied and taunted, is a dramatic reminder of the need for prayer that stretches out to heal the morale of individuals and society as a whole. back to school—taking off the labels

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I've witnessed the healing effect of this principle. One of our daughters had had difficulty during most of her primary and secondary school years. Reading did not come easily, and since most of the rest of her schoolwork involved reading, all academics were a struggle. Because her self-confidence was so low, she sometimes came to me in tears when other kids would ask, "Why do you go to that special reading teacher?" or, "How come you're in the lowest reading group?"

Our family supported her progress in every way we could, including working with her on her reading and homework and giving her private reading instruction outside school. Even with my confidence in my own prayers, it wasn't easy for me to be unconcerned. So much in the news media told of children having "attention deficiencies" and other learning disorders—and the problems stemming from those labels. And yet, all through those years, I continued to pray.

The foundation of my prayers was to know God better. According to Science and Health, "We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God" (p. 258). So I reasoned that a clearer understanding of the unlimited nature of God, good, would enable me to see my daughter's unlimited spiritual identity and lift the labels of "poor reader," "low self-esteem" right off.

I explored the nature of God by contemplating the seven synonyms for God, included in Science and Health (see p. 465). It was not so much an intellectual exercise, but more like listening for God to declare the qualities of His being to me—such as the spiritual qualities of Soul, of infinite Mind, of Love and Truth. This deep prayerful listening and yearning led me to feel a closer identification with God's knowing as my knowing—as a divine, reflective awareness.

One day inspiration came to me in a unique way: I thought of the English language sentence construction, particularly the subject (the person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being something). It suddenly dawned on me that since every one of us is really the expression or image of God's being, then God is like the subject of the sentence of our lives—and we (including my daughter) then naturally express God in spiritual qualities. That which evidences God must be Godlike.

Education—without labels

Parents should be aware that children are sometimes subjected to certain psychological theories that would stereotype them and their school experiences. These theories, which ultimately infringe on a child's well-being, run the gamut and use such labels as: "slow learner," "middle child," "inner-city child," "an only child," and even "the gifted child."

Christian Science, the Science of real Mind, can help us annul psychological beliefs, beliefs that would manipulate a child's educational development with the slapping on of a label. The truth is that God is Mind, the only Mind, and that man is the expression of this Mind. Man is not a struggling mortal with a limited brain and a limited amount of intelligence. His intelligence does not depend on genetic factors or "cultural conditioning." God is the Mind of man.

Our ability to think, reason, and learn stems from our true identity as Mind's manifestation. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love."1

We can realize that nothing can dispossess man of his God-given heritage of intelligence, creativity, and joy. Psychological theories and labels should rightfully be classified as powerless and without influence on us or our children.

At one time I worked daily with young schoolchildren from a variety of ethnic groups and economic backgrounds. Many of these children came from broken homes—a situation paralleling mine at their age. In fact, overhearing a remark about such a child jolted my thinking, which had been pretty apathetic. I suddenly realized that I had accepted the false notion that coming from a broken home had affected my education. And I was accepting the same belief about these children.

I knew it was time for me to expose the "broken home" label as a fraud. Prayer led me to this powerful passage in Science and Health by our Leader, Mrs. Eddy: "Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence."